Sermons on the Blessed SacramentPreached in the Oratory of S. Margaret's, East Grinstead

by John Mason Neale, D.D.

London: H. R. Allenson, n.d.

SERMON IV
THE SHADOW OF GOOD THINGS

"And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one
to another, It is manna; for they wist not what it was. And Moses
said unto them, This is the bread which the LORD
hath given you to eat."--Exod. xvi. 15.

[1857]

OF this most wonderful type of a nobler
food than itself, we were speaking last night. But now, in the
quietness and stillness of our own little Oratory, let us see
again how God the HOLY GHOST
has taught the Saints and Doctors of His Church to understand
this shadow of good things to come: blessed in itself, in that
it supported a fainting and weary multitude of six hundred thousand
footmen, besides women and children, during their forty years'
journey in the desert; much more blessed in that it shadowed
out that wonderful food of which if a man eateth he shall never
die: that food which, till the lips that spake as never man spake
had first revealed, could not even have been conceived by the
human intellect: that food of which it is so truly and admirably
written, What nation is there so great, who hath GODso nigh unto them, as the LORDour GODis
to us?

Dearest Sisters, none can be more interested in these Old
Testament types of our daily bread than you ought to be. There
are no words, when we remember this feast of fat things made
for you every day--there are no words which can express what
ought to be the holiness, and purity, and devotion of your lives.
None can be more trusted than you are, each of you, to say when
they are conscious to themselves of anything which ought to keep
them away from that Body and that Blood. In your self-examination
at night I know you would not willingly fail. But, remember,
every morning you ought to put to yourselves, however shortly,
at least most strictly, that great question, Is there any one
thing since I last received the Blessed Sacrament which ought
to hinder my receiving it now?

But, assuming this--trusting in GOD,
as I do, that you do so try to examine yourselves--then, my dearest
Sisters, it is a delight and a privilege indeed to me to give
you the Food of Immortality day by day; to think that your hands
are, as it were, sanctified to works of mercy, by holding that
which suffered for you on Calvary, by touching that Body as truly
as Mary Magdalene touched it when she annointed it with her ointment
and wiped the feet with the hairs of her head, or as Thomas,
when he touched the precious wounds of the Hands and of the Side.
Those hands of yours, dear Sisters, ought indeed to be specially
hallowed to every work of love; whatever they find to do ought
indeed to be done with all your might, for the sake of Him Who
was so mighty, as well as so loving, to save you.

And now, what shall I first tell you of the manna? First,
I think, this: We are apt to look upon it, not only as a most
astonishing miracle, but as a miracle which was perfectly new,
of a kind never heard of before, of a perfectly distinct species
from anything that had elsewhere happened. But it is not so.
You know that, to this day, in that desert manna falls--in very
small quantities, just here and there, not in sufficient abundance
to support even one man's life; but yet it does fall. GOD, therefore, did not altogether create a
new wonder; He took, as it were, a natural provision, and so
increased and multiplied it that it became a miracle of miracles.
See now how this is His way. It might have pleased Him that nothing
should have been placed on the Altar, and that, at the words
of Consecration, the Body and Blood of His dear SON
should have appeared of themselves. This would have been in reality
no greater miracle than that which we behold; nay, holy men have
not feared to say that it would not have been so great a marvel.
But He bids us do our part. We give the bread and wine: He transmutes
them into our LORD'S Body and Blood. So
He did when He was about to feed the five thousand, and again
the seven thousand, in the wilderness. He might, by one word,
have created all that food. Not so: He multiplied it from the
provision that there already was. At Cana of Galilee He might
have filled the empty waterpots with wine by one word, or without
one word. By no means: He commands them first to be filled with
water. Or again, when His disciples said, "LORD,
teach us to pray," He might have made for them a prayer
absolutely new, of which not one word had been used in prayer
before. You know that He did no such thing. Every single clause
in the LORD'S Prayer is to be found in
the Temple service of the Jews. He merely chose from that; He
vouchsafed, so to speak, thence to extract the material, but
to form and shape it Himself into the perfect model of all prayer.
And, dear Sisters, there is a lesson for you in all this. What
is it? Surely this: GOD, in accepting
your self-dedication to Him, undoubtedly will give you grace
that shall direct every action to His glory. But also, undoubtedly,
it is by the powers or talents that each of you have by nature
that His grace will principally work, that you must expect it
to work, that you must look for being made the instruments of
especial good. That it is which so blesses and transfigures knowledge
of any kind, influence of any kind, accomplishments of any kind,
nay, and such things as a pleasing manner and general tact. Dear
Sisters, of these also it may be said, The LORDhath need of them.

Next notice about the manna, that it was like the hoar-frost.
Think for one moment of this, and you will see how exquisite
a type it is of our True Manna. We know how gloriously beautiful
is the hoar-frost when the sun shines on it, when it glitters
with such purity and freshness, when it glows with the colours
of the rainbow, when it arrays the hedges with a loveliness that
Solomon, in all his glory, never attained. But at the very moment
of its highest perfection, what does it do? It melts and ceases
to exist. Now, my dear Sisters, you who feed on the manna, are
you not bound to reflect all the rays of the Sun of Righteousness
in holy and beautiful lives--in lives that give out to sight,
as it were, the sevenfold graces of the sevenfold SPIRIT--in
lives that shall have attained the very perfection of this beauty
at the very moment of their end? And again, see how the hoar-frost
turns the meanest things into loveliness, sheds softness over
the sharpest, veils over deformity, hides impurity. So this heavenly
manna again with you. It, too, must elevate every work you have
to do; it, too, must beautify every thorn you have to feel; it,
too, in an impure and naughty world, must keep you pure and faithful.
And yet one thing more. Every crystal of frost, if you look at
it through a miscroscope, presents the figure of a Cross--each
crystal its own figure--some more, some less lovely, but all
the Cross. Dear Sisters, I need not interpret that parable to
you.

But what came with the manna? for that too nearly concerns
us. In the morning the dew lay round about the host. And
this has two meanings for us. We all know that, as each Person
of the ever-blessed TRINITY has His own
proper office in the work of man's redemption, so it is the part
of the HOLY GHOST
to effect the change in the elements now, as He once effected
the Incarnation of the Word made Flesh. And He is indeed the
Dew, so pure, so soft, coming so silently, giving life and refreshment
and beauty everywhere, coming in a way that none can understand,
coming invisibly, coming in the night of affliction. The dew
and the manna still, then, come together, and GOD
grant that they may remain together; that His work may still
go on with you and by you, when you have received that Heavenly
Food; that His peace may dwell in your hearts, His strength give
you vigour, His love kindle your whole soul to love Him Who first
loved you!

Then notice, that the Jews here asked a question which was
not answered. When they thus saw it lie on the face of the earth,
they naturally said, "Manna?"--that is, What is it?
Now, when Moses gave his first message from GOD
to the Twelve Tribes, he had expressly inquired by what name
GOD would make Himself known to them;
and he received as answer, I am that I am. Here the people
inquired, but they had none other than the general reply, This
is the bread which the LORDhath
given you to eat. And thus see that for this Blessed Sacrament
there is no one such distinctive name as to swallow up the rest,
there is no one especial type which stands prominently forward
above all others. See how here it is the manna of the Jewish
desert; see how, in the history of Samson, it is the honey in
the lion's body, as the antitype was that heavenly sweetness
instituted for us at the death of the Lion of the Tribe of Judah;
see how, under the old law, it was the shrew-bread, set forth
as an acceptable offering in the Holy Place; how, in Jotham's
parable, it is the wine that cheereth GOD
and man; how, in Elijah's story, it is the cake of bread and
the cruse of water, in the strength whereof he went forty days
and forty nights unto Horeb, the Mount of GOD;
how, among Elisha's miracles, it is the meal which, cast into
the poisonous pottage, made it wholesome; how, in Solomon's teaching,
it is the banquet and the wine which Wisdom makes in the house
of her seven pillars; how, in the words of Solomon's mother,
it is the wine to be given to those that are ready to perish;
in those of Isaiah, the wine and the milk without money and without
price; in those of Zechariah, the bread of the valiant, and the
wine that blossoms into virgins.

Still we may ask the same question, What is it? And still
we find it so adapting itself to all our needs, so our safeguard
against all dangers, that to us, as of old time, no one reply
can be made to the question. It is, during our pilgrimage, the
nearest approach to the Beatific Vision; it is, so far as anything
can be in a land of exile, our all in all.

And then, notice its falling early. Were there no other reason,
dear Sisters, this very type should make us rejoice that our
manna falls early in the morning there also. I think there could
be no better habit for all of you than, with reference to this,
to say, while dressing, those two Psalms, taken together, which
we do say at Lauds every night--the 63rd and the 67th. For see
how they speak of it: O GOD, Thou
art my GOD; that is, even so, even
under the form of Bread and Wine, even thus vouchsafing to come
among us again, as once in Thine own form, when Thou didst walk
upon earth. Thou art my GOD: others
may question, others may deride, others may blaspheme, but we
know and are persuaded that Thou art the CHRIST,
the Saviour of the world. It shall be said in that day, Lo,
this is our GOD; we have waited
for Him, and He will save us.

Early will I seek Thee: and the earliness of the day, dearest
Sisters, should but be the type of your obeying in everything
at the first call, pressing forward at the very soonest opportunity.
I need not go through the Psalm for you: you can do it for yourselves.
Every one of you, dearest Sisters, will receive the Bread and
Wine of Immortality to-morrow. Do now as I have told you, and
try to throw yourself into the true spirit of those Psalms: to
realise, Thus have I looked for Thee in holiness: to endeavour
to say, As long as I live will I magnify Thee on this manner--vowed
specially to Thee, and separated from all things else: to think
of your daily banquet, and to say, My soul shall be satisfied,
even as it were with marrow and fatness; to say, as I hope
you will be able to say, Have I not remembered Thee in my
bed, and thought upon Thee when I was waking? to promise
that, so far as you are concerned, the King, your King, your
Beloved, shall rejoice in GOD,
because in you He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall
be satisfied: and then, in the next Psalm, to unite yourselves
with the Communion of the Saints, fed with the same Bread, united
in the same Body, while you say, Let the people praise Thee,
O GOD; yea, let ALL the
people praise Thee.

And yet again. If the manna, which fell in the morning, was
the type of this our Christian food, the quails, which came up
in the evening, were equally the type of Jewish ordinances. Notice,
therefore, that the quails only covered the camp, because in
Jewry only was GOD known: His Name was
great only in Israel. But the manna fell round about the camp,
because the Church that our LORD came
to found was to have dominion from the one sea to the other,
and from the flood unto the world's end; because then and thenceforth
the earth was to be the LORD'S and the
fulness thereof. But there is something beyond this. The quails,
through the Books of Moses, were the type of worldly desires;
they were the answer sent in anger to a wrong petition: they
were a fatal gift; and the end of them was Kibroth Hattaavah,
the Graves of Lust. Notice, then: these quails came into the
camp; they were to be taken without any trouble; they were in
the midst of the bustle and confusion of everyday life: the manna,
on the other hand, lay in the stillness and solitude of the desert,
and it had to be gone out of the camp after. Yes, dear Sisters,
and so it is still. Worldly pleasures, such as they are, you
may have without labouring for--you may have in the turmoil of
the world: this heavenly food you must seek with care: you
must come out, as GOD says, from among
others, and be separate: you must, as S. Paul speaks,
go forth with your LORDout
of the camp, bearing His reproach.

And much more I might show you of the way in which that Israelitish
manna is a type of the Bread of GOD, which
cometh down from Heaven. But after all, my dear Sisters, the
chief thing (for let me end as I began), rests with yourselves.
As our numbers increase, this ought to be more and more our earnest
prayer for each, that here, where of all places we most desire
to honour that Blessed Sacrament,--here, where in an unbelieving
and unloving world, we desire to be faithful and loving,--here
we should not dishonour it more than others, because, with such
professions, a little fault among you is so far worse than the
avowed and open carelessness of the world.

And now I can only say to you, as Moses to the Israelites,
This is the Bread which the LORDhath given you to eat. Oh! what miracles of grace may
I not look for from all of you, if you only come to such a banquet
as those who by their very profession should come, who are the
LORD'S alone. Nothing, I know it well,--nothing
but the wonderful grace of GOD, and not
your own strength, would enable you so to work as your very life
will often require, for all its self-denial, for all its difficulties,
its few encouragements, its many sorrows. Sufficient grace for
that you have: and, but by your own fault, He that hath begun
a good work in you will perform it unto the day of JESUS
CHRIST.

Oh, dear Sisters, that it may be so! That this Bread of all
strength may give you ever-increasing might till your final victory:
that this manna of all sweetness may, as of old, continually
lie about your tents here, till that blessed day when, the Jordan
having been passed, you shall eat new corn in the true Land of
Canaan!